2011: We’re Living In The Future, For Good

Imagine if in 1995 someone had described to you what life would look like in fifteen years. It certainly sounds like “the future” that was long promised by twentieth-century science fiction, Discovery argues:

The year is 2010. America has been at war for the first decade of the 21st century and is recovering from the largest recession since the Great Depression. Air travel security uses full-body X-rays to detect weapons and bombs. The president, who is African-American, uses a wireless phone, which he keeps in his pocket, to communicate with his aides and cabinet members from anywhere in the world. This smart phone, called a “Blackberry,” allows him to access the world wide web at high speed, take pictures, and send emails.

It’s just after Christmas. The average family’s wish-list includes smart phones like the president’s “Blackberry” as well as other items like touch-screen tablet computers, robotic vacuums, and 3-D televisions. Video games can be controlled with nothing but gestures, voice commands and body movement. In the news, a rogue Australian cyberterrorist is wanted by world’s largest governments and corporations for leaking secret information over the world wide web; spaceflight has been privatized by two major companies, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX; and Time Magazine’s person of the year (and subject of an Oscar-worthy feature film) created a network, “Facebook,” which allows everyone (500 million people) to share their lives online.

This is so materialistically written that it’s almost ridiculous, of course its by one of the biggest corporations on the planet. What about fuel sources? In America we’re still using oil for everything and letting the sun and wind go to waste. Slavery and racism in our world’s forever-developing countries don’t sound too futuristic either, neither does an idiotic public that hardly understands anything that happens in their country, listening to their african-american president speak slowly in simple words. A century and a half ago political candidates spoke with finesse, using vocabulary and phrase structure 95% of us wouldn’t be able to follow today. How in the hell is having a stupider people with fancier gadgets a future? Our fundamentals are still all askew.

http://www.jayurbzz.com jayurbzz

This is so materialistically written that it’s almost ridiculous, of course its by one of the biggest corporations on the planet. What about fuel sources? In America we’re still using oil for everything and letting the sun and wind go to waste. Slavery and racism in our world’s forever-developing countries don’t sound too futuristic either, neither does an idiotic public that hardly understands anything that happens in their country, listening to their african-american president speak slowly in simple words. A century and a half ago political candidates spoke with finesse, using vocabulary and phrase structure 95% of us wouldn’t be able to follow today. How in the hell is having a stupider people with fancier gadgets a future? Our fundamentals are still all askew.

Ironaddict06

I agree. People in general are not smarter than people 15,20,50, or even 1000 years ago. Technology has got a whole lot better to make peoples lives a bit easier, but people are not smarter.

jf

I agree. People in general are not smarter than people 15,20,50 or even 1000 years ago. Technology has got a whole lot better to make peoples lives a bit easier, but people are not smarter

Assuming that English is your native language; I’m sure you’re 1970s doppelgaenger would be able to express themselves in proper English; as opposed these twitter-esque sentences that does cannot even properly express the sentiment that technology doesn’t necessarily make a person smarter.

No, this isn’t a me being a grammar nazi thing; its an example of someplace that our standards have changed and thus while we would be considered borderline illiterate by someone who just walked out of say 1976; inconclusive proof i provide for this hypothesis includes basically all of the out-of-print books, magazines and older movies (id est ‘network’ has a brilliant dialogue that is often difficult for a contemporary teenager to grasp it all without looking at least a few words up).

That all said, I will leave it open to debate as to whether smarter/dumber can practically be applied in this manner; for instance, you probably don’t know how to do much of the manual labor of an average american boy from say 1776 would do, but thats mostly due to technological advances rendering such knowledge superfluous.

If I had to draw an opinion on the subject id say that contemporary teenagers and adults, at least many of those raised in the western world, have an affinity for ignorance that has become part of the culture to some degree.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Jetpacks bitches…we should be flyin all over the place. Show me my jetpack…then I’ll oo and aah all over the place.

http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

Jetpacks bitches…we should be flyin all over the place. Show me my jetpack…then I’ll oo and aah all over the place.

Ironaddict06

I agree. People in general are not smarter than people 15,20,50, or even 1000 years ago. Technology has got a whole lot better to make peoples lives a bit easier, but people are not smarter.

Bud Bundy

I just want a iJack and a iUzi so I can rob people all internet like since I cant get a job

Bud Bundy

I just want a iJack and a iUzi so I can rob people all internet like since I cant get a job

jf

I agree. People in general are not smarter than people 15,20,50 or even 1000 years ago. Technology has got a whole lot better to make peoples lives a bit easier, but people are not smarter

Assuming that English is your native language; I’m sure you’re 1970s doppelgaenger would be able to express themselves in proper English; as opposed these twitter-esque sentences that does cannot even properly express the sentiment that technology doesn’t necessarily make a person smarter.

No, this isn’t a me being a grammar nazi thing; its an example of someplace that our standards have changed and thus while we would be considered borderline illiterate by someone who just walked out of say 1976; inconclusive proof i provide for this hypothesis includes basically all of the out-of-print books, magazines and older movies (id est ‘network’ has a brilliant dialogue that is often difficult for a contemporary teenager to grasp it all without looking at least a few words up).

That all said, I will leave it open to debate as to whether smarter/dumber can practically be applied in this manner; for instance, you probably don’t know how to do much of the manual labor of an average american boy from say 1776 would do, but thats mostly due to technological advances rendering such knowledge superfluous.

If I had to draw an opinion on the subject id say that contemporary teenagers and adults, at least many of those raised in the western world, have an affinity for ignorance that has become part of the culture to some degree.